Sunday, December 18, 2011

What's On Your Winter Reading List?

Last year, er, at the beginning of this year (not meaning to rush the holidays at all here...) I challenged myself to read the entire Harry Potter series from beginning to end before the final movie hit the theaters in July. I had so much fun completely immersing myself in the magical wizarding world, I finished with time to spare, and now I long to reread the series again! I am completely addicted to Harry--not new news here...

Then I had to find something to read that could possibly hold my interest, trying to follow in JK Rowling's footsteps. Surprisingly, thanks to recommendations from several friends, I've had a great year of reading! I began GRR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series with Game of Thrones, which I loved! I have the next three books already, but want to stretch those out until Dance With Dragons is released in paperback, which won’t be until next October (I think...) I'm too cheap to buy it in hardcover but, amazingly, the paperbacks cost less than the Kindle versions! Anyway...so to help fill in that time span, I plan to read the Lord of the Rings series beginning with rereading The Hobbit, which I have waiting under the Christmas tree--yay! So that's a healthy helping of seven good books to start off 2012!

Other excellent books I've read this year were Rob Bell's Love Wins (which I have to share if anyone's interested, just holler!), Garth Stein's Art of Racing in the Rain, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (awesome!!)and I just finished Todd Burpo's Heaven is for Real. I also read Don Piper's 90 Minutes in Heaven (been quite an afterlife reading year and Love Wins added another interesting level to what those two books offered...)

Three more books on my 2012 Wanna Read List are The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Nightwoods by Charles Frazier, and Ken Follett's Winter of the World-sequel to Fall of Giants and due out sometime in the later half of next year. I'm thinking it's going to be another great year of reading ahead! What's on your reading list?